Key Fantasy Stats Travelers

Travelers Championship

August 4th – August 7th, 2016

TPC River Highlands

Cromwell, CT

Par: 70 / Yardage: 6,841

Purse: $6.6 million

with $1,188,000 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Bubba Watson

by Sal Johnson

Founder, Chief Data Officer, GOLFstats

E-mail me at:
sal@golfstats.com

This is based on the most vital stats from TPC River Highlands, based on data from last year’s Travelers and using data from all the players in the field with stats from 2016.
The most important thing to realize about TPC River Highlands, its a course that is very forgiving, you don’t kill a lot of brain cells in getting your way around it and if you drive it long and reasonably straight you can win. Just look at the roll call of past champions, guys like Bubba, Kenny Perry, Phil Mickelson, Kevin Streelman, Marc Leishman and J.J. Henry, guys that hit is far and go chase it for their next shot. Now this doesn’t eliminate short hitters, guys like Brad Faxon, Woody Austin and Olin Browne have won and they are not long hitters.
So your first choice should be guys that hit it a long way, guys that are hot right now and guys that showed some promise at Baltusrol.
The tournament is being played two months later than usual. In a way it was a good compromise, they wanted to do some rebuilding of the course and the extra time help them so they are now in August and before the Olympics. I am very surprise that three of the four Americans in the Olympics, Bubba Watson, Patrick Reed and Matt Kuchar have decided to play at the Travelers instead of going down to Rio and being a part of the opening ceremonies on Friday. But there is a very good reason why these three are playing in Cromwell and that is the course is perfect for all three, gosh Bubba is not only defending but has won it twice.
Talking about the work and enhancements done of the course since the last time it held the event, they have removed 50 bunkers along with repositioning others in order to make the course a bit tougher. They have also rebuilt several tees and greens, but the course will play basically the same yardage wise, just the new changes make it different and a bit tougher.
So in making your picks think outside the box for this week, I like some of the younger players like Justin Thomas along with guys like Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau.

So in looking at our four categories, we have to also go outside the box. Remember this isn’t a tough course, last year it played to a 69.38 average making it the 29th hardest on tour. Hitting it long is important, making birdies are important as 1,599 were made last year making it the 40th hardest on tour, not bad for a course that only has two par 5s. To score low you have to play good on it’s 12 par 4s, last year the par 4s average was 3.99, only a half dozen full field tournaments had lower par 4 averages. So our first category is Strokes Gained Off the tee because those that it is long and far have a big advantage. Next is Par Breakers which is a combination of birdies and Eagles, you have to make a lot of them this week to have any chance. Our third category is scrambling, that is getting it up and down when you miss a green last year Bubba Watson led this stat. Our last category is par 4 average, last year Bubba was 12 under on the par 4s and led that stat.
*Strokes Gained off-the-tee: Combination of distance off the tee and accuracy

*Par Breakers: Who makes the most birdies and eagles per round.

*Scrambling: The percent of time a player misses the green in regulation, but still makes par or better.

*Par 4 averages: Players that do the best on par 4s.

Players from this year’s field with stats from 2016:

Click any column title in the table header to sort columns.